Danny Sangra | A conversation with the multi-hyphenate artist

Illustrator, writer, director, and animator extraordinaire Danny Sangra’s work can be seen all around, having worked with brands like Sony, Samsung, Louis Vuitton, Nike, and directing works for A$AP Rocky, Mykki Blanco, Balenciaga, Miu Miu, Mercedes Benz. And his work is immediately recognizable—comic, graphic, humorous, occasionally deadpan, and always a treat to see.

Beginning illustrating, eventually moving to filmmaking, and more recently diving into animation, Sangra’s oeuvre spans many years of countless, varied, but recognizable projects. Very recently, Sangra’s work can be seen in Flaunt’s Dawn Chorus Issue.

Flaunt caught up with the artist to discuss illustration and filmmaking, fangirl over The Midnight Gospel, and chat about taking up animation. Read below!

How are you? Have you kept busy during the past year?

I’m doing well, I’m glad I’m not dead. Essentially, it’s been alright, with the caveat of all things considered. It’s hard to do a lot of shoots, but I’m lucky because I still do the illustration side of things, and that’s never really stopped, so it’s been quite interesting. I’m also animating, just to see how that’s changed with what’s happening.

I saw your film diaries and I’m curious, what have you been watching as of late, some of your favorite things?

It’s funny because the reason why I did the film diary is because people ask, and it’s 6 years worth of films. This month I’ve only tried to watch Steve Buscemi films, like every now and again, I wouldn’t see it and would get bored, so I challenge myself. So sometimes I do a chain month where I can only watch a film if it has some relationship to the previous film, and if I happen to watch them out of those links, I have to find some links to connect them. Like I once had to find someone in the makeup department who worked on two films, like scrolling in the credits, there has to be a link somewhere. Steve Buscemi films aside, I’ve weirdly gone on a rant of a lot of modern films that I fucking hate, that I can’t say publicly because you’re not allowed to dislike things. I find myself talking to one or two friends in particular, like, is everyone fucking crazy, or am I just not seeing it? So yeah, I found that I’ve avoided a lot of new stuff, but I can tell I probably won’t like it. This sounds really negative.

A lot of us are thinking that, but won’t say it.

I watched the film that literally made me want to quit films, period. Like how? But anyway, that aside, I’m digging through stuff, and I’ve stopped watching shows. During quarantine, everyone started watching everything, and I stopped.

I would like to mention, in your 2020 film diary, you mentioned that your favorite thing of 2020 was Midnight Gospel, specifically the last episode. I deeply agree with that.

Anyone that brings it up only brings it up in a positive way. What it’s depicting, you’d have to be heartless and have no soul not to appreciate that. There’s a lot of people that immediately dismiss things, and that’s got a distinct look about it, and then you realize what it is. I’ve given people three episodes to watch, one is one my favorites, and I’ve yet to find anyone to say what the fuck is that? Which makes me feel good about my friendships.

I think that show and other recent animation, like BoJack Horseman, people write it off, and it has the power to say and do things that you can’t do otherwise.

Now that we’re seeing more things, people are watching everything, like Netflix is a video game you can complete. And people are like, you know maybe I will watch the anime show. You can suggest things that if they were humans and actors, they would offend people, and you can say it through a talking jellyfish, and people are gonna take it differently. Like the jellyfish said it, not me. I thought Midnight Gospel was my favorite thing I saw last year. We needed it to be honest, you’re not gonna come out a bad person. 

You started off with illustration, your style is comic-y in a way, but it's more than that. What were some of your childhood inspirations that continue to feed into your work today?

I think one of the things that gets me over the years is that I’ve not done one thing. Super big names kinda do one thing, and everyone knows them for that, and people keep going back for that one thing. I think I have elements of that, for sure, but I tend to get bored. Like, alright, I’ve done that, and now I wanna do something else. Usually, I like dialogue, so my drawings try to soften the blow, and everything is kinda coded. So I think growing up I was obviously into Manga, growing up in the north of England in the 80s, when you could get hobbies, there was no internet, so it wasn’t like you could dig around for stuff, it was more forensic. I think I found a videotape of Ultraman, the cartoon version, and like some toys, when I was a little kid, and I just would recognize the style and gather these bits together. So, you know, Japanese animation was a big thing for me, and when I got to year 13 or 14 Akira blew my mind. I had seen it in my first work experience as a kid when I was 15. I don’t know if you do this in America, but you do a work placement and you get two weeks out of school, and most kids get a job in the local office or something like that, and my mom knew that I liked Japanese animation stuff, and she asked if they had offices in England. We found out they had them in London, so I did a work placement in Manga when I was 15 in the London office, and I got like Akira cells downstairs. It was pretty mind blowing. Those are the ones that pop into my head. And then every cartoon imaginable, like, as a kid, any cartoon on TV, I would watch. Any time. 

Clearly you are an avid film and TV watcher, but what made you make that move to filmmaking? 

My dad was really into cinema when I was a kid, he would just watch a lot of Kurosawa films, but I was so young, I was like three or something like that. So he would be playing Kurosawa, but I didn’t know what he was, I just saw the characters. So that probably is where that Japanese element came into play, cause my dad did martial arts around that time. And he was a really keen photographer as well, I guess, but I come from a background where we didn’t have much money, so camera equipment, you don’t have access to that. So in the moment, I just did this thing for the Design Museum in London, where I started a program for basically young kids who want to get mentorship and learn more about the creative fields, which, that was a big thing for me that I didn’t get at until I was maybe 18 and 19, where I realized ‘oh you can do this, you can do that’ and that sort of thing. So, I always wanted to do film, but I didn’t understand how I could do it. I probably wouldn’t have even had the means to do it then anyway. I got bored of illustration, to be honest in my mid 20s, and I just needed something new, and I found my mind just instantly went to writing shorts. I mainly started with fashion, that was it, because I didn’t want to do music videos, but I did want the experience, and I come from a fashion background anyway with my print designs and where I went to college, so I thought if I worked in fashion, there the rules are different, you can be way more experimental, especially at that time. It wasn’t what it is now. It is more commercial than it is experimental now. 

I think you were saying you’ve been doing a lot of animation now too, which I think is you taking that filmmaking and you taking that illustration and putting them together, especially, I was looking on your website, and you do animations over old films. 

Yeah. For years people would say to me ‘you have to try animating’ and I just felt like I lacked the patience for it, ‘cause it’s so hard, ‘cause I am not a good animator, I do animation, but I am not like those people that do amazing animation. I do simple things, that’s what I do. I just found a way to do what I do from my still life work from my collage pieces. I can do that now with moving image, and I feel comfortable with the line work that is my line work, it’s not someone else doing it for me, I do it also. But I only started doing that because of the Stanley Kubrick exhibition I did for the Design Museum, ‘cause when they asked me to do something for them, ‘cause they know I like Kubrick, so when the show came to England they recalled ‘would you do something for the promotion?’ and I thought ‘okay if I am going to animate, now’s the time to combine the two.’ It felt like sacrilege though, to be honest, but it is what it is.